Old School Skippers...
 

I'm getting back in Silent Hunter in a big way. I'm wondering if any of the old school skippers are still around?

I still have my SH cd sitting around somewhere... but havn't played it for a long long time...

I'm going to be starting a career tomorrow. I'm going to post my progress here occasionally and summarize the whole patrol in a
report each time I return to base. I'll post the report here for everyone
to analyze.

Well, I have SHCE installed under XP with the VDMS configuration. I only really discovered WWII sub sims last year.

At the moment, I am busy playing AOD [DOS].

Some of my initial impressions of AOD and SH1 are:

(1) There is way too much Japanese shipping in SH1. In AOD, you have to patrol. In SH1, you are hard pressed not to run into the enemy.

(2) Escorts seem harder to evade in AOD. In SH1, I have successfully evaded 5+ escorts that originally located me. Also, SH1 escorts are prone to ambush attacks.

(3) SH1 merchants seem more likely to have deck guns and night/fog attacks seem much riskier than AOD.

Full campaigns take so long to run ... When I finally complete AOD, I want to go play an SH1 campaign ... And then, I also want to play some SH2/PA too.

Not to mention all the SCXIIC/SCU missions I have downloaded.

I think I'll just be on patrol until I am old and gray!

Even allowing for coast watchers, there are too many contacts in SH1. I
deal with it by deciding on an overall strategic goal for the patrol. It might
be going into all the ports and doing a depth sounding to verify the charts, or mapping harbour bouys. Something along those lines. Once in the patrol area I start to work on the strategic goals. I don't change course to
chase down a contact unless the crew spots the ships. Occasionally, if there is a warship contact nearby I'll throw the crew an "Ultra" contact and
let them chase it down. Only for the larger ships though and never more
than once per patrol.

(SS-18) S-18 departed Manila for its first patrol.

2016 Hours:
Loc: 14'38N, 120'46E,
Tuesday. December 16, 1941
Sunrise-0617 Sunset-1725
Moonrise-0420 Moonset-1615
Moon-New Sea-Calm
Weather-Partly Cloudy
OS:
Course - 235', Speed - 10kts, Depth-13ft.
Departing Manila Bay for the Philipean Sea patrol area. We won't
using the aft torpedo bay as S-18 is a Group 1 boat. If the Captain
can locate his banjo and Is/Was he might skip the TDC too.

Kinda nice to know with all the attention focused on that Atlantic sim, ChristopherT is still faithfully patrolling the blue Pacific. :cool:

"That Atlantic Sim", would've made a better title than Silent Hunter 2. I for one, don't see any connection between the two. It's a long ride to the north of Luzon in an S-boat. With any luck, I'll stay on the border of the deep water and run into some Japanese troop transports. All my paper charts for Silent Hunter have vanished. I have all my charts from CAOD, but not SH. I'm making new ones as I go along. I've been studying some material from the HNSA site - http://www.hnsa.org/index.htm and doing some background reading. I'm going to try not to depend on the TDC as much and try some manual fire control. I do have a primitive IS/WAS that I'm going to try out.

I have charts downloaded from the Battle Below (which seems gone). PM me with an email address and I'll zip and send them to you.

Those I have! The Battle Below site has moved to www.valoratsea.com . I was referring to my old National Geographic maps of the Japanese islands and some other stuff from the old Gizmology site that went down. Thanks
for the offer though!

Thanks for the updated link. Although I had archived the whole site, I am glad to see that it still lives!

Do you have the "Rangecalculator.gif" from the section on No TDC attacks? I have the Whizwheel.gif, but not the other.

This one?

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/marksh...calculator.jpg

That's the one, except it's already folded! :yep:

Thanks!

The boat is now patroling north of the Lingayen Gulf and is headed for Vigo. Eventually it will reach it's patrol area north of Appari. There is
military traffic north of Luzon, but it's on the eastern side.

Worked out this chart while researching torpedo speeds, thought it might
come in handy for someone.

Knots vs Yards/Minute.

5 Kts = 170 Yds/Min
10 Kts = 340 Yds/Min
15 Kts = 510 Yds/Min
20 Kts = 680 Yds/Min
25 Kts = 850 Yds/Min
30 Kts = 1,020 Yds/Min
31 Kts = 1,046 Yds/Min - Mark 14, Slow Speed - 9000 Yards.
33 Kts = 1,113 Yds/Min - Mark 18 Mod 1 - 3500 Yards.
35 Kts = 1,181 Yds/Min
36 Kts = 1,200 Yds/Min - Mark 10 Torpedo
40 Kts = 1,350 Yds/Min - Mark 18 Mod 2 - 3500 Yards
46 Kts = 1,552 Yds/Min - Mark 14, Fast Speed - 4500 Yards.